CISG 2006: Learning from others

Wednesday 8th November
1100	Registration & Exhibition opens
1200	Lunch in the Exhibition
Opening Session : Chair : John Townsend, Liverpool John Moores University
14.00-14.15	Welcome from the CISG Chair John Townsend, Liverpool John Moores
14.15- 15-15	20 things that most Principals need from Corporate Information Systems Tim O’Shea, Principal, University of Edinburgh		About Tim O'Shea Presentation
15.15-15.45	Refreshments in the Exhibition
Session Chair : David Goddard, UCISA
15.45-16.30	Can developers and users live on the same planet? Dugald Mackie, The University of Manchester		Abstract About Dugald Mackie Presentation
16.30-17.00	IT for student-facing processes: the next step? Owen Richards,University of Sussex		Abstract About Owen Richards Presentation
1900	Drinks Reception sponsored by Agresso
2000	Informal dinner sponsored by Salford Software

Thursday 9th November
Session Chair : Stuart Bolton, Leeds Metropolitan University
09 00-9.45	Successful change management: rising to the EduChallenge Gill Ferrell, JISC infoNet		Abstract About Gill Ferrell Presentation
09.45-10.30	ePDP – from eProgress files to ePortfolios Angela Smallwood and David Ford, University of Nottingham		Abstract About Angela Smallwood and David Ford Presentation
10.30-11.00	Refreshments in the Exhibition
Session Chair : Liam McDowell, University of Edinburgh
11.00-11.45	Maps Gaps Overlaps Jack Kenward, SUMS		Abstract About Jack Kenward Presentation
11.45-12.15	An integrated FM approach Colin Turnbull, University of Edinburgh presented on behalf of John Leishman, University of Edinburgh		Abstract About John Leishman Presentation
12.15-12.45	UCISA Sungard Award for Excellence winner Graham Pearson, Brunel University		Abstract About Graham Pearson Presentation
1245	Lunch in the Exhibition
14.00-14.30	Suppliers Showcases	Tribal Business & Decision (formerly Mi Services) Sungard
14.30-15.00	Suppliers Showcases (repeated from above)	Tribal Business & Decision (formerly Mi Services) Sungard
15.00-15.30	Refreshments in the Exhibition
Session Chair : Peter Tinson, UCISA Executive Secretary
15.30-16.00	Balanced Score card Paul Evans, Liverpool John Moores		Abstract About Paul Evans Presentation
16.00-16.45	Does IT matter in HE? David Sweeney, Royal Holloway		Abstract About David Sweeney Presentation
16.45	UCISA CISG AGM
1900	Drinks reception (sponsored by Dell Corporation)
2000	Conference dinner (sponsored by Tribal) and after dinner speaker

Friday 10th November
Session Chair : Heidi Fraser-Krauss, University of St Andrews
09 45-10.30	Resolving student identity management issues Mark McManus		Abstract About Mark McManus Presentation
10.30-11.15	Shared services? It's just another MAC initiative isn’t it? Paul Hopkins, University of Newcastle and Peter Tinson, UCISA		Abstract About Paul Hopkins and Peter Tinson Presentation (MP3 Audio)
11.15-11.45	Coffee
Session Chair : John Townsend, Liverpool John Moores University
11.45-12.15	e-Administration: mapping and meeting the challenge Shona Cameron, University of Strathclyde		Abstract About Shona Cameron Presentation
12.15 -12.45	The politics of customer data Charles Courquin, Oracle Corporation UK Ltd		Abstract About Charles Courquin Presentation
12.45	Lunch

Presenter Details and Talk Abstracts

Shona Cameron

e-Administration: mapping and meeting the challenge

The role and importance of e-Administration is becoming increasingly important across the educational sector. Funding bodies, including HEFCE, see leadership, governance and management becoming increasingly more challenging. This is coupled with a move to a more risk based accountability framework which relies more on the institutions own administrative processes and procedures.

The rate and pace of technological change is being felt across the entire institution and the degree of process and system integration now commonplace means that issues of administration are no longer confined to central corporate functions but also have a direct and profound impact on the delivery of learning and research activity. This helps further increase the importance and prominence of e-Administration and the breadth of its relevance across the entire institution and means that any new processes and structures must be appropriate for the development and delivery of high quality education underpinned by technology.

Moving to a more streamlined and responsive state implies that administrative changes can have a big impact on the operations and capabilities of an institution. Managers, administrators and those working with the technology need to understand the impact and the emerging solutions effectively if significant progress is to be made.

The importance of JISC leading on a strategic approach to administrative change has never been higher. This presentation will set out JISC’s current work in this area and provide a vision on where future developments may lie.

Shona Cameron has worked in higher education for almost 25 years, and has held a number of positions related to information and learning technology development and support. Since 2001, she has been Director of Learning Services at the University of Strathclyde. Learning Services, along with IT Services and Library Services, is part of the Information Resources Directorate which seeks to enable the best use of communications and information technology in support of the University's work. The remit of the department is wide – from ensuring that presentation facilities in all teaching rooms are in good working order through offering staff and student IT training and development programmes to pioneering development work in e-learning. Shona was instrumental in establishing a technology support service for disabled students, which annually supports around 300-400 students, helping ensure that the curriculum is accessible.

She is a member of the Joint Information Systems Committee for Organisational Support and is Chair of the Board of TechDis, the UK’s leading educational advisory service in the fields of technology based accessibility and inclusion. She has recently been appointed Chair of the Board of JISC infoNet, which supports managers in the post-compulsory education sector in areas such as the strategic planning, implementation and management of information and learning technology.

Charles Courquin

Practical guidance on managing the politics of customer data

This presentation will look at the challenges faced by universities and other organisations around customer data management and will explore the consequences of data being held in different departments and in mulitple locations. The issues that surround customer data management are not new and they are here to stay as the biggest barrier to good customer information is the politics that surround it. What customer data do you hold? Who owns that data and what can it be used for? Charles Courquin will provide some advice and guidance on tackling the politics of customer data and will offer some practical steps that organisations can take to provide coherent, good quality customer information.

Charles Courquin is Senior Director for Applications. He is responsible for both product strategy and the Partner Channel in Oracle’s applications business in the UK, Ireland and South Africa. Having gained a degree in Biochemistry at the University of Oxford , Charles joined the management consultancy practice of Price Waterhouse working as an Analyst Programmer eventually progressing to a Consultant leading engagements in the commercial sector. Charles joined Oracle in 1994 working in Sales in the Public Services group where he became Regional Sales Director. He became Senior Director for Applications in 2004, acting as product strategy lead for Oracle UK during the acquisition of Peoplesoft and Siebel and now has additional responsibility for the Channel organisation as well customer investment programmes. Charlesalso representsOracle on the Wokingham Strategic Partnership ensuringcorporate business is involved in local community development.

Paul Evans

The Balanced Scorecard – strategic management versus performance measurement

The Balanced Scorecard has been a well used tool since its development by Drs Kaplan and Norton at Harvard Business School in the early 1990’s. However, it is often misused by organisations that view it solely as a performance measurement system, instead of realising its full potential as a tool for strategic management and execution. This presentation covers the approach taken by Liverpool John Moores University in using the Balanced Scorecard as the means by which strategy can be formulated, implemented, communicated and measured, as part of the overall pursuit of business excellence using the EFQM Excellence Model Framework. The aim is to extend the potential of the simple measurement system to one where complex strategic interdependencies can be understood and managed, through the effective alignment of the organisation with strategy.

Paul Evans is Director of Business Excellence at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK. He has more than 20 years experience of quality and change management industry and the university sector, and has worked extensively with the EFQM on various projects, including process benchmarking, model review, and assessment process review. He has also acted as a senior assessor foe the EFQM Excellence Award for several years, leading assessment assignments throughout Europe. A Fellow of the Chartered Institute pf Personnel and Development; and an Associate of the Institute of Quality Assurance; he is also chairman of Excellence North West, a not for profit company promoting business excellence across the North West region of England.

He lives on a remote smallholding in North Wales, with his partner, Christine, and their four dogs.

Gill Ferrell

Successful change management: rising to the EduChallenge

Change is endemic in the education sector and the ability to manage change effectively is a key skill for managers and leaders. Implementing the Bologna Process will be a major exercise in change management for the sector as a whole and JISC infoNet is leading a project with UCISA (and a range of other UK and European partners) to help institutions prepare for this. The project will draw on a recently launched infoKit on Change Management and a change management simulation tool produced by one of the world’s top business schools. This session will outline the project and introduce some of the key concepts underlying the Change Management infoKit. Participants will also have the opportunity to try out the simulation and see whether they can convince the Dean and staff of the Management School at Humfeld University to change their practices to support the implementation of the Bologna Process. In keeping with the theme of Learning from Others, the EduChallenge simulation will be provided by INSEAD (Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires) in return for feedback to help in its further development for the HE sector.

Gill is Director of the JISC infoNet service and is the author of many resources in the infoKit series: Project Management, Risk Management, Process Review, System Selection, Contract Negotiation and Change Management www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/InfoKits. In previous roles she has managed projects selecting and implementing third party software and in-house developments and has led on projects making major change to business processes. She has also led a number of collaborative projects including the recent CAMEL project (Collaborative Approaches to the Management of e-Learning) run jointly with the Higher Education Academy and Association for Learning Technology (ALT) and is currently leading a HEFCE funded project with a number of partners, including UCISA, to help institutions prepare for the implementation of the Bologna Process. Gill has published many papers on issues relating to information systems and the use of technology to support learning and teaching and been an invited keynote speaker at many national events.

Paul Hopkins and Peter Tinson

Shared services? It’s just another MAC initiative isn’t it?

Shared service centres are commonplace within large multidivisional commercial companies and have delivered both efficiency gains and cost savings. However, the public sector has been rather slower to develop shared services with the first major initiative being introduced in the Health Service last year. The Cabinet Office, as part of its Transitional Government initiative, is looking to build on the success of the Health Service initiative and introduce shared services in all areas of Government.

But higher education is not like any other public sector; the individual institutions are autonomous bodies in competition with each other. Will shared services be seen as a threat to individual institutions’ competitive advantage? Or is there scope for developing a regional agenda by pooling resources more effectively? Are there business opportunities for some institutions or organisations like the MANs to provide services for smaller institutions? Is there scope to build on existing areas of collaboration? Is the current Government drive for shared services more about saving money and less about improving the service for customers? If shared services really could deliver real cost savings, wouldn’t institutions have already developed such services? Or have senior managers missed a trick? Does this have the potential to be another MAC initiative – an expensive and ultimately unsuccessful exercise?

The introduction of shared services into the higher education sector has the potential to be a highly contentious issue. Paul Hopkins and Peter Tinson will debate the merits and potential of shared services, to highlight the key issues and seek to provoke further discussion and debate with the Conference delegates.

Paul Hopkins is Director of Information Systems and Services at the University of Newcastle. Prior to joining the sector in 2003, he worked in multi-national engineering, chemicals, pharmaceutical and other similar organisations. He has created and operated multi-company data centres running complex ERP solutions across Europe. Within HE, he is currently Chair of the Russell Group of IT Directors (RUGIT) and a member of UCISA Executive. He has also recently joined the HEFCE HE Sector Shared Services Advisory Group. Within Newcastle,the applications architectureis now very heavily SAP oriented. Much attention is being focussed on developing an SOA strategy combined with the rapid rollout of Shibboleth across all parts of the University systems. Significant efforts are being made to increase collaborative activities with Regional Universities − hence the Shared Services initiative is of fundamental importance to Newcastle's future direction.

Peter Tinson is the UCISA Executive Secretary, a post he has held since May 2005. As UCISA Executive Secretary, Peter is regularly invited to join advisory boards and steering groups to give the sector viewpoint on particular issues. These have covered topics as diverse as central government procurement performance and the introduction of digital TV. Peter attended the initial HEFCE led workshop on Shared Services and is a member of the HEFCE HE Sector Shared Services Advisory Group. Prior to joining UCISA, Peter held a number of posts at City University where, at various times, he had responsibility for the MIS service, quality assurance within the Information Services Division, business continuity, legal compliance, change management, customer liaison and, on a number of occasions, all of the above. During his time at City, Peter was a member of the UCISA CISG Committee, chairing the group from November 2000 – March 2004.

Jack Kenward

Maps and gaps and overlaps

This session will briefly look at the drivers that have moved integrated information environments up the HE agenda, and then ask how we can exploit existing information systems to create an interoperable information environment. A simple integrated corporate information systems model will be presented, and current systems from example HEIs will be mapped against the model. Some of the key gaps and overlaps will be identified, and approaches to addressing them will be outlined, with brief case studies of some systems integration approaches. The session will conclude with some reflections on the role of information strategy and information management standards in supporting systems integration.

Jack Kenward’s first contact with HE corporate information systems was at the University of Kent, specifying and testing an exam timetabling system written in Fortran. From 1989 to 1997, he worked at the University of Leeds, eventually in the Planning Office where, among other things, he worked with the University Computing Service on budgets and service level agreements. He was also instrumental in producing the University’s first Information Strategy, shortly after which he left to take an MSc in Information Management at Lancaster. Following this, he worked as a business consultant with ICL e-business services and Fujitsu Consulting. Since 2003, he has been a consultant with Southern Universities Management Services, and has worked on information management projects for a number of SUMS member universities.

John Leishman

An integrated FM approach

The University of Edinburgh implemented an Oracle and Archibus FM based, internet enabled estates and buildings information system. The comprehensive and detailed facilities management system has been developed using advanced customisation to provide facilities, asset, estates financial and space management to all departments of the University, which has over 200 major academic buildings and over 500,000 square metres of space. The resulting system consists of integrated modules for space management and room booking, maintenance management with helpdesk, project financial control, stores control and asbestos management. Most is now web enabled and use is made of latest wireless and handheld technology for stock control, planned maintenance and asbestos surveys. It also interfaces to the University’s finance, human resource and student record systems to ensure that data is only entered once at source. This session will discuss why the integrated approach has been successful and will outline the benefits achieved.

John Leishman is the Depute Director of Estates and Buildings at the University of Edinburgh. Having graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Building Management and Construction, he spent a period of three years with a national firm of surveyors. During this period, he completed his professional practise and qualified as a chartered surveyor. He then moved to the University, initially working in building maintenance and project control, eventually moving to cover a wider role in maintenance and facilities management. He has continued to work with the University for the past 34 years, managing a staff of approximately 150 professionals and trades staff.

Mark McManus

Resolving student identity management issues

Salford Software is only too aware of the challenges faced by universities and colleges. With many years of experience within such large organisations we were amongst the first to acknowledge the need for a vision for academia and so the vision was realised and the academic landscape was created.

Our identity management and secure access solutions have assisted some of the major universities in the UK, including Westminster, Derby and Nottingham. We will be discussing the business issues which lead these universities to implement these solutions

Reduce the cost of resetting forgotten passwords
Readying their organisation to adopt Shibboleth
Improving the user account lifecycle process
Delivering a unique portal experience to its users based on their role
Managing the security issues surrounding temporary users of the university’s network services

Mark is the Director of Solutions Development at Salford Software. He previously worked for Novell as the UK Education Account Director. Having worked with universities, schools and colleges for in excess of 15 years, Mark is well known throughout the academic community. He was one of the first to recognise the need for the academic vision, a vision which many of the universities and colleges have adopted as their strategic goal. He is now a leading authority within the field of identity based solutions, working for Salford Software, The Identity Specialists within academia. Mark is proud to have the opportunity to work with UCISA. His years of experience and technical background enable Mark to identify the business issues and requirements faced by academic organisations today.

Dugald Mackie

Can developers and users live on the same planet?

Mutual understanding between users and developers so that the former can state clearly what it is that they want and the latter can be equally clear about what they can in reality deliver should in theory be a straightforward element of any large systems project. However, the reality is often very different with projects spiralling out of control, caused often by such poor communication and lack of understanding that one wonders whether developers and users do, in fact, live on the same planet. The speaker will draw on his experience of the current major IS Programme at Manchester and his earlier experience of the development and implementation of business systems to explore whether this understanding can in fact be achieved, rather than remaining as a holy grail, always to be sought but rarely to be found.

Dugald Mackie is Vice-Principal of the University of Manchester, where his core responsibility is to maintain strategic and operational oversight of the University’s current £43 million major IS Programme and of the core support services in the IS/IT area, as well as lead the development of a longer term i-Strategy for the University. He was previously Registrar and Secretary in the University and, from 1996 to 2004, the Secretary of the University of Glasgow. His previous experience includes working in the Universities of Aston and of Strathclyde and in the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, where he counts his major achievement as bamboozling colleagues into funding MANs when such networks were relatively unproven entities. He is currently a Board Member of the Big Lottery Fund and has served in a similar capacity in the past with UCAS and with a large FE College in Glasgow.

Tim O'Shea

Professor Timothy O’Shea was elected Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh in October 2002.

He has a BSc in Mathematics and Experimental Psychology from Sussex University and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Leeds. He carried out Artificial Intelligence research at the University of Texas, at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Centre and the University of Edinburgh. He joined The Open University in 1978 and was awarded a Personal Chair in Information Technology and Education then, in 1994, was appointed Pro Vice Chancellor for Quality Assurance and Research. In 1997, he became Master of Birkbeck College and was awarded a Chair in Information and Communication Technologies by the University of London.

In 2000, he was appointed Provost of Gresham College and in 2001, Pro Vice Chancellor of the University of London. He held these two posts concurrently with that of Master of Birkbeck. In 1999, he was elected Fellow of the European Coordination Committee for Artificial Intelligence, in 2001 admitted into the Freedom of the City of London and in 2004 he was elected Fellow of The Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Graham Pearson

UCISA Sungard Award for Excellence winner

Brunel University has over 14,000 students, 2000+ staff and until recently, was split over 3 Campus’s. There are several Halls of Residence on campus providing accommodation for 3000+ students. A key component in Brunel’s success in making this a safe and secure environment for both students and staff has been the development and implementation of an in-house, Incident database system.

The presentation describes the inadequacies that existed with the previous paper driven system, and the way in which a system design and development, using the standard Oracle toolset, close user involvement throughout and an integrated approach has had a significant impact in the running of the University.

Graham has been the Head of Corporate Information Services at Brunel University for several years, and during the last two years has also been the Deputy Director of the Computer Centre. Before this he occupied a similar position at the University of Westminster. During his time in higher education he has been involved at one time or another with all the major administrative system areas (e.g. Student Records, Human Resources), as well as many of the smaller areas (e.g. Counselling, Work Placement). Prior to higher education, Graham worked for BP, the oil giant, for nearly 20 years, gaining a wide knowledge of both commercial and technical systems development. His last role there was as Senior Project Manager overseeing the replacement of BP Chemicals HR and Payroll system.

Owen Richards

IT for student facing processes: the next step?

Conventional database applications have come a long way in recent years in terms of supporting student administration. Many of us have built on those database platforms to create web portals which feed information back to students and academic staff, and facilitate direct interaction. However, we continue to seek further ways of improving processes, driven by the need to find efficiencies at the same time as improving services to our sophisticated student consumers, in an increasingly competitive environment. This presentation will suggest that achieving the next phase of process improvement will require us to adapt the available technologies to integrate document management with conventional database applications, to deliver well designed combinations of the two kinds of functionality to staff and students. We will look at some specific examples of Registry processes which we are seeking to improve in this way at the University of Sussex, and some of the potential gains and risks will be examined. The session will welcome input from colleagues at any stage of thinking or development work in this direction.

Owen Richards has been Academic Registrar at the University of Sussex for 7 years, and is a member of the Academic Registrar’s Group. His background is mainly in the area of Registry systems development, and for 16 years he has worked closely with IT colleagues to specify, design and implement database and business process changes. He has been a member of several national working groups, including work with HEFCE and HESA on the methodology for producing student progress Performance Indicators. This is his first visit to a UCISA Conference and he is looking forward to exchanging ideas with UCISA members.

Angela Smallwood and David Ford

ePDP – from eProgress files to ePortfolios

The University of Nottingham has over ten year’s experience of PDP and has been supporting it electronically since 2002. Triggered originally by the need to quality assure personal tutoring at the institutional level, provision at Nottingham sits at the interface between learning and administration. This presentation will review lessons learned from the first generation of practice (eProgress files) and outline the institution’s aspirations for a second generation of practice based on ePortfolios. The issues will be placed in the context of the latest developments in policy and technology, including regional FE/HE collaborations and lifelong learning networks, interoperability solutions, web 2 and the eFramework, online admissions for widening participation and postgraduate entry.

The current technical solution will be described and a roadmap presented of the functional elements of future developments, based on student centred ePortfolios linking to institutional management systems via a service oriented architecture. This will include how the solution can be extended to provide links to external agencies, and how the model can be reused in different scenarios.

Angela Smallwood is Director of the University of Nottingham Centre for International ePortfolio Development and also Co-Director (ePortfolios) of the University of Nottingham CETL for Integrative Learning. An academic and a National Teaching Fellow, since 1996 she has led a series of majorHE projects in the UK,funded by HEFCE, DfES and JISC, contributing to policy, practice and research on the implementation of eprogress files and eportfolios for transitions, both within institutions and across sectors regionally and nationally, to support lifelong and lifewide learning.

David Ford is Head of Applications Development and Support within Information Services at the University of Nottingham. Having gained a PhD in Computer Science and spent 12 years in software development in industry, he is now responsible for all applications development within the University, covering business systems, learning and teaching support and research applications.

David Sweeney

Does IT matter in HE?

Nick Carr's award winning Harvard Business Review article (and subsequent book), Does IT Matter is a challenge to our profession. This talk looks at some of his arguments as applied to HE, concentrating on the relationship and different strategic views of senior management and IT professionals, arguing that each fails to fully appreciate the role and strengths of the other. In many higher education institutions this relationship is complicated by the preponderance of non-specialist managers being given period appointments at a senior level. Based on research across a number of institutions, this talk will discuss how MIS issues are perceived by senior teams and consider how to build a mutually supportive and beneficial relationship. What will win senior teams over to support MIS projects? How can the value of MIS projects be sold to senior academic managers who only understand academic values but also to those (sitting on the same team) who are only interested in the bottom line? How important is IT to higher education?

David Sweeney is Vice-Principal, (Communications, Enterprise and Research) at Royal Holloway, University of London. A statistician, he has worked at Royal Holloway since 1991, and has senior management expertise in the IT field, and past experience of working in two research institutes. For fifteen years, he was Director of the Computer Centre then Director of Information Services at the College and was closely involved in implementing a new suite of MIS systems. He moved to his current post in 2004.

He is a member of the UUK Research Assessment and Funding Options Group, and sits on the Board of West Focus. He is Chair of Royal Holloway Enterprise Limited, and Chair of the Management Board for the AHRC CHARM (Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music). As Vice-Principal, he has led the Brand Review exercise at Royal Holloway, and the implementation of the College brand through all communications media. He works closely with the External Relations Office onmarketing, press, fundraising, events and internal communications matters. David has a lead role in coordinating the College's preparations for the next Research Assessment Exercise. With the Research and Enterprise Office, he advises on developing Royal Holloway's research led commercial and consultancy activities, knowledge transfer and collaborative opportunities.


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CISG 2006: Learning from others

Wednesday 8th November

Opening Session : Chair : John Townsend, Liverpool John Moores University

Session Chair : David Goddard, UCISA

Thursday 9th November

Session Chair : Stuart Bolton, Leeds Metropolitan University

Session Chair : Liam McDowell, University of Edinburgh

Session Chair : Peter Tinson, UCISA Executive Secretary

Friday 10th November

Session Chair : Heidi Fraser-Krauss, University of St Andrews

Session Chair : John Townsend, Liverpool John Moores University

Presenter Details and Talk Abstracts